The Aluminum Association Trade Enforcement Working Group filed a petition requesting relief from imports of Chinese aluminum foil in May 2017. Almost one year later, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum foil from China ranging from 55-176%.

Since then, according to an Aluminum Association white paper released Tuesday titled “Targeted Trade Enforcement in Action: Aluminum Foil AD/CVD One Year Later,” imports of Chinese aluminum foil have fallen significantly.

Imports of aluminum foil from China by volume fell 64% from 2017 to 2018, down from 272.4 million tons to 97.7 million tons. The white paper also notes imports of “unfairly traded aluminum foil” from China accounted for 60% of U.S. import market share in 2017, but just 20% in 2018.

The white paper also touts an increase in investment in the domestic aluminum industry.

“Companies like JW Aluminum and Granges worked for the past several years to reinvest in the U.S. foil industry,” the Aluminum Association white paper states. “These firms have announced substantial capital investments – with a combined value of approximately $169 million – to expand and strengthen facilities at which they manufacture aluminum foil.”

“One year after taking strong action to enforce our nation’s trade laws, we are seeing clear and significant progress in the U.S. aluminum foil market,” Brock said. “We’d once again like to recognize the hard work of the administration, including the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission, in helping aluminum foil producers in the U.S. to compete on a level-playing field.”

Brock also highlighted the action taken vis-a-vis aluminum foil compared with the Trump administration’s blanket tariffs on steel and aluminum imports via a Section 232 probe. In that case, the Aluminum Association has called for the tariffs on trading partners like Canada and Mexico to be removed and for the Trump administration’s trade enforcement focus to be squared on Chinese overcapacity.

“Not all tariffs are created equal,” Brock said. “Targeted trade enforcement as we’ve seen successfully deployed in the aluminum foil and, more recently, common alloy sheet, markets are the best way to make an impact. This approach allows us to effectively address issues in the marketplace while avoiding needless and disruptive tariffs on vital trading partners who play by the rules.”

The Section 232 tariffs on imported steel and aluminum — of 25% and 10%, respectively — remain in effect with respect to imports from Canada and Mexico. That fact remains a sticking point in the ongoing process to approve the pending United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the intended successor to the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The USMCA was signed by President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto during the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires late last year. However, the agreement must be ratified by each country’s legislature before it can go into effect.